Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth

by John C. Wright

  But the Progressives would rather die than admit their beliefs are dogmas. They each pretend they are all fearless and independent thinkers, who have all come to the same fashionable conclusions because the matters are so clear and obvious—too, too obvious to bother discussing—that no other opinion is possible, nor needs to be explored.

  In other words, they are conformists pretending to be nonconformists, they are stupid people pretending to be smart, and they are cowards pretending to be brave. One wonders whom they think they are fooling.

  The final reason is illegitimate. It is a knowledge of the weakness of one’s own position, and the desire to silence the opposition. Now, at best, this betrays an impatience with the thickheadedness of the opposition, or disgust with their willful blindness, or condemnation of their lies. However, a gentleman continues a conversation even with fools and liars in the hopes that onlookers will come to understand on whose side truth stands, and he abides by the rules of debate even if the other does not. There are many reasons for this, one of which is that one is entirely clear of any accusation of retreat.

  It has been my unfortunate experience never to have met a legitimate reason for retreat from the combat of debate. I have never been asked by an Abolisher to hold my tongue because ladies and children were present, so that we could meet out back and continue the conversation outside the hearing of those who would not understand that we can debate a point without ill will and argue without hatred. Indeed, I have never met an abolisher who could argue without hatred. Indeed, I have never met one who pretended to argue without hatred, or who held intellectual integrity to be a value worthy of pursuit.

  I have never met an honorable enemy. Nothing but caitiffs and vermin meet my sword. Perhaps I have been spoiled by long years being an atheist, when not one, but many apologists for the Christian religion expressed themselves logically, clearly, without rancor, without sneers, without hate, without heat.

  At the time, I thought love of reason was the universal heritage of all men, or, at least, of all intellectuals. Since then, I have never met more hatred of reasoning anywhere more vehement than the hatred of intellectuals for reason. It is the treason of the clerks.

  I truly hope you have better luck than me.

  But for the moment, I think experience sufficiently demonstrates that the Abolishers wish to abolish reason first of the human faculties of mind to be discarded on our way to afterhumanity.

  To them, questioning any of their received dogmas about politics, economics, human sexuality, or any other topics including climate science is not a sign of curiosity but a sign of mental flatulence, moral depravity, and treason against the universe.

  But, you may ask, if they are not willing to discuss matter, why is all academia, all jurisprudence, all entertainment, all media, and the entire leftwing blogosphere filled with nothing but talk, talk, talk?

  I propose a simple answer. These words are apologetic for their doctrine, or preaching to the choir, or missionary work to the unenlightened.

  Progressivism is a heresy of Christianity, that is, based on Christian ideals taken out of context but ignoring other Christian ideals; but it retains the Christian catholic nature, that is, small-c catholic, meaning universal. Progressivism is meant to be sovereign in the hearts of all men in all the whole world, and rule all nations, tribes, languages, and peoples.

  The reason for all this talk combined with so much silence on so many crucial issues is because of despair. Progressives do not believe in philosophy, do not believe in metaphysics, do not believe in reasoning about matters of faith, which, to them, includes politics and economics and science, and every other matter they find so confusing but do not admit they do not understand.

  The Progressives also hold, as a matter of their Pseudo-Calvinist dogma, that we Reprobates are destined to be damned from Creation, that we are trapped in a false consciousness of an ideological superstructure, or deceived by a narrative, or poisoned by testosterone, or something — so that it is impossible to reason with us.

  The crowning dogma of their nihilistic, pro-irrationality worldview is that we, who have reason and right reason, we the normal and sane people, we are irrational to the point where no debate with us is possible, and no speech.

  The insight which flashed upon me was that this was not merely cowardice, not merely the desire to avoid humiliating defeat in debate after debate, but was despair. They think they are the elite, the only true humans, the Tarzan, living among a grubby tribe of ape-things with whom no speech is possible.

  They are not willing to discuss matters because they have no hope.

  I am engaged in the difficult task of explaining an insight it required my dull brain several decades of experience and one moment of epiphany to see.

  Again, in all fairness, this is something which I assume nearly everyone but me has seen for years; but to me it was an intellectual adventure, as shocking as opening a hidden door and coming across the Minotaur in the center of his bone-littered maze. Many others no doubt have trod here before, but still I feel the excitement of discovery, for I have found the heart of the labyrinth.

  I have been puzzled for years how it is that so many otherwise wise and educated people can be Leftists; why so many otherwise compassionate people simply overlook the bloodthirsty enormities routinely perpetrated, applauded, excused, and rationalized by the Left, from prenatal infanticide to lauding Che and Castro and other butchers of men; why otherwise honest men approve of the Orwellian lies of Political Correctness, which corrupts both speech and thought; why so many otherwise good and faithful Christians routinely ignore Christian teaching and cling to the shibboleths of Political Correctness on any point where the two worldviews differ; why so many good people so routinely support, applaud, and encourage so blatantly vile an evil.

  It is too obvious for the blindness to be anything but willful, and yet it does not seem to be willful, for who can will the destruction of themselves and all they hold dear? How is it possible for so many children of the most blessed, most powerful, most successful, most wealthy, most free, and most benevolent nation history has ever known to hate it? Why are the heirs of Western Civilization the enemies of Western Civilization?

  The epiphany visited me in the space of a single hour, along the course of three conversations with honest men I happen to respect, despite our deep differences of opinion.

  It was as if I suddenly could see clinging to the countenances of these otherwise honest and able men, the Facehugger from Alien which had been invisible up until that point, whose long proboscis entered their skulls though mouth and palate and shot poison into their brains. I wondered why they did not tear the Facehugger away, and breathe free.

  Not to spoil the surprise ending, but the reason that exploded into my awareness like a bolt was this: they have nothing else. They leave the alien thing lodged in their brains, eating away their happiness, ruining their lives, spoiling friendships and darkening the light of heaven for the simple, tragic reason that without the alien thing, they would be lonely.

  I mentioned the first discussion and one of many, many non-discussions which clicked the first two tumblers into place in the process of unlocking this moment of insight. Here is the next.

  Second Discussion: I Forged My Own Life

  The next clue came during a particularly elliptical conversation about the alleged demerits of Disney: there were some in the conversation who despised Disney because his films retell fairy tales without the gore and horror found in some of the Brothers Grim versions, as when the evil stepsisters in Cinderella do not have their eyes pecked out by songbirds, blood and vitreous humor dripping down their screaming cheeks, and because Disney tacks happy endings on tragedies, as in Disney's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.

  The basic point being made was this: children should be exposed to all the horrors of real life as young as possible, and kept away from any stories which give them hope. There are no miracles. There is no magic. No marriages are happy endings. You
cannot fly. Curse God and die. Give up. Shut up.

  As with all Abolisher ideas, it starts as a perfectly reasonable-sounding notion. In this case the notion is that telling children that to “wish upon a star” is enough to win the battles of life without hard work, self-discipline, and suffering is deceptively optimistic. The idea is that the child will grow into a more realistic view of life if the fairy tales he sees depict hard work and self-esteem as the source of victory, rather than fairy magic.

  This sounds reasonable at first. Who wants to raise a child to have faith in something, like an omnipotent and benevolent God, which will disappoint him, rather than have faith in something much more true and practical, like our omnipotent and benevolent and utterly ruthless Political Leadership, which never disappoints anyone?

  But the idea that Disney sugarcoats his bitter medicine is patently false. There is more evil—and it is more horrible to a child—in any Disney animated film than you will find in a Progressive and optimistic show like Star Trek. Any show where you have to die and get resurrected to overcome the evil is not a show that promises easy victories.

  I will point at the evil Witch in Snow White, along with the death and resurrection of the heroine; the slaver who turns children into mules in Pinocchio, not to mention Monstro the whale, who engulfs the father in a symbolic death and resurrection before the boy suffers a true death and resurrection; the imprisonment of Dumbo’s mother, and his humiliation as a clown, and the symbolic feather of hope which alone allows him to prevail; the death of BAMBI’s mother; the humiliation of Cinderella, and her ‘Magnificat’ moment, when, as in the Canticle of the Virgin, the proud are cast down and the humble are raised; the loss and death and resurrection in Peter Pan, not to mention Captain Hook; the false accusation in Lady And The Tramp, and the mess created by the Siamese Cats; the curses and thorns and thunder and flames unleashed by the she-dragon in Sleeping Beauty, with yet another symbolic death and resurrection; and the frightening spectacle of the devilish mountain come to life in the “Night on a Bald Mountain” sequence in Fantasia… what is a Klingon compared to that?

  Need I go on? Need I also mention the sea-witch in The Little Mermaid, the huntsman in Beauty And The Beast, (with yet another symbolic death and resurrection), the evil sorcerer in Aladdin, the scheming brother in The Lion King and the father slain before his son’s eye, the sinister magistrate in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame whose song of lust conjures up images of hellfire….

  The idea that Disney does not scare the peanut oil out of little kids’ brains, and confront the wee ones with death, curses, dragons, monsters, more death, injustices, pirates, even more death, loss, loneliness, and on and on… is simply a lie unworthy of refuting.

  No. Any child watching a Disney movie has the idea driven into the depths of his tender soul, and fixed there as if with nails, that evils and horrors exist, and pain, and loss, and death.

  What Disney gives, as all sound fairy tales must give, is a eucatastrophe, a good and miraculous ending beyond hope, with joy as huge as woe, and the terrible, secret promise that if you wish upon a star, heaven will send salvation in some secret disguise, to resurrect you.

  Allow me to quote the Apostle of Common Sense, Mr. G.K. Chesterton:

  Fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination.

  What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.

  Hence what the Abolisher wishes to abolish is not the fear caused by a fairy tale, but the hope, for he finds it to be a false hope.

  To the Abolisher, all hope is false hope.

  All hope? No, not quite. Some Abolishers, at least, retain the Enlightenment faith in mortal man, that most warped of building beams.

  The conversation dwelt for a moment upon the scene in Sleeping Beauty where the three fairies rescue the Prince out of the dungeon of the beautiful but evil witch, (so sue me, I always thought she was beautiful). He is told that only truth and righteousness can overcome the evil power of Maleficent, and he is given a magic sword and shield. The fairies protect him from the gargoyles and hobgoblins of the castle, and brush away all their stones and arrows, or turn them into bubbles and flowers, for his fate is not to be stopped by them.

  Then, in a scene that hardly seems in keeping with the gentleness of Disney, the evil fairy in a whirlwind of fury appears before the prince, and sheds her beauty forever for hate’s sake, and becomes a monster, announcing: Now shall you deal with me, O Prince, and all the powers of Hell!

  I voiced the opinion that this climactic scene was perfectly true to life, truer than any documentary, since indeed this is exactly the way life works. No man by his own effort can free himself from the dungeon of sin, despair, and death, but by supernatural intervention by a higher power. And yet that power, not because of any ineffectiveness or indifference, cannot fight man’s final battle for him, but only provide the weapons of truth and virtue, which are magic indeed, enough to slay monsters, and defy not merely some, but all the powers of Hell.

  The sacraments and gifts from heaven will do their part; man must see to it that he does his, if true love is indeed to conquer all, as all prophets have promised it shall do.

  Ah, but the rebuttal to this was swiftly said: my interlocutor thought the scene was a cheat, if not a lie, because the fairies aided the prince. No man needs any help to win life’s battles, or to achieve his dreams. And no help is coming.

  This was said, not by a bricklayer, but by a writer, and I fear I swooned in astonishment. Many questions whirled in my pounding head, to which I, strangled with surprise as I was, could give no tongue.

  I wondered where he thought his ideas came from? From himself, or from the muses, or whatever name one gives to the mystery of inspiration? Where did the traditions and tropes and tools he used in his writing come from? From himself? Or from his masters and teachers and ancestors? Where did his fame come from? From himself? Or from the kindness of his audience, the grace of good fortune, the smile of heaven?

  I must have gasped out some question along these lines of some sort, because he polled all who were listening to the discussion, which was not a small number of people, and asked them who was responsible for their success, in art or in life? Themselves? And all but two raised their hand.

  Everyone in the room was content to take credit for the blessings in their lives, as if it were no more than their just wage, the merited reward of their own works.

  It is an inescapable truth that no man can take all credit to himself and at the same time feel any gratitude to any for his blessings. If you earned it, it is not a gift. If you earned it by yourself with no one’s aid, you owe no thanks to anyone.

  And this indeed was the attitude, which I take to be the modern attitude. The Abolisher triumphantly announced that he needed no good fairies, no magic, no grace, no gift from heaven to achieve all his dreams. He disdained to take a magic sword of Efland; he would forge it by himself, for himself, or do without.

  I had a prophetic vision then, and saw how Siegfried, who did indeed forge his magic sword for himself, and relied on none but his own strength, came to an end. For he is foredoomed to fall speared in the back, a coward’s blow, by Hagen, a man with the heart and heritage of a dwarf. The man who lives by himself cannot escape his fate, which is to die by himself.

  I hope I will not be misunderstood. I do not mock. I bow my head almost in respect akin to fear. I salute the melancholy, doomed, and gloomy pride of this
sad and great pagan with whom I spoke. I do not doubt his word, no, not by an iota, the tiniest of letters. I think he is entirely responsible for his life, and he accepts no aid.

  And he will die, and his loved ones will die. Some of his loved ones will die in slow pain, and others in merciful swiftness. Some will die before him, so that he will weep by their graves, and there will be no consolation; and some will die after him, so that they will weep by his, and likewise find no consolation.

  I bow my head, because at once, as if with a stroke of lightning, I saw that he and all his kind live in a universe that is a sepulcher.

  To be sure, it is a coffin of appalling vastness, fifteen billion light-years in radius, too large for the imagination of man to comprehend even its smallest moiety, godlike in its sheer magnitude of size;: but it is a coffin nonetheless, an airtight coffin, hermetically sealed with all the stars trapped inside, and all within are the prey and sport of death and entropy. Everything dreamt and everything done inside the sepulcher will come to nothing in the end. Escape is not merely impossible, it is unimaginable.

  They cannot wish upon a star because to them the sky is black. There are no stars, nor Star-Maker, nor light.

  For the pagan, there is by definition no outside, no other realm, no home to which to return, no happy ending, no efland, no magic, no hope, and if you wish upon a star, you are a childish fool.

  And if you pray to that sovereign Providence who fashioned the stars, when all the Sons of Light shouted aloud for joy, then you are both fool and enemy.

  For the noble pagan did not spare to tell all his audience how terrible the false beliefs of the Christian were, and how strong and great the fairies and spiritual beings and princes of the middle air he worshiped were. No, I am not speaking in a metaphor: the man was an occultist.

  By no means is every Liberal, Leftist, Progressive, Nihilist, Socialist or other Abolisher of Man a warlock trafficking with unseen powers in hopes of worldly gain; but they all share his goal and his spirit. Only their methods differ.